Assessment Committee

Abstract
Based on ten months of research at two elite universities in Beijing,
(Tsinghua University and Beijing University), this thesis focuses on the
conundrums of life for young people in China today who were born after
the introduction of the One Child Policy. Addressing the seemingly
paradoxical situation faced by these young people, many of who are among
the lucky few, who have made it to the top of a very competitive
educational system, yet feel deeply ambivalent about their own futures,
and often suicidal, the thesis explores what is at stake for these elite
university students as they come of age. I argue that they experience a
double bind, in the form of two opposing (yet interconnected) social
imperatives, those of "self-sacrifice" and "self-actualization". I see
these as tied to existential aporias, moral dilemmas that admit no
resolution and reflect contradictions intrinsic to the human condition.

The thesis provides a critique of one of the dominant paradigms in the
field that interprets current developments in China as based on either
neo-liberalism or on bio-politics as defined by Michel Foucault. I argue
that such a paradigm tends to see individuals as instantiations of
these larger governmental regimes, thereby missing much of the
complexity and tension. Through case histories of students of different
social backgrounds, I explore how intergenerational dilemmas are linked
to but not entirely reducible to historical and political
transformations, including the Chinese state's educational policies
focused on improving the "quality" of the population.